Sean Mac Stiofain

Sean Mac Stiofain (17 February 1928-18 May 2001), born John Edward Drayton Stephenson, was a Provisional IRA leader during The Troubles. Born in England to a Protestant family, Mac Stiofain would later join Sinn Fein and become a member of the IRA Army Council, but he was forced to leave the council in 1972 as a result of Bloody Friday and other disreputable actions.

Biography
John Edward Drayton Stephenson was born in Leytonstone, London, England on 17 February 1928 to an English father and an Ulster Protestant mother. He attended Catholic schools, meeting pro-Sinn Fein Irish students. In 1945, he was conscripted into the Royal Air Force, and he joined Sinn Fein in London in 1949. In 1953, he took part in an IRA raid on the Officers' Training Corps armory in Essex, and Stephenson, Cathal Goulding, and Manus Canning were captured and sentenced to eight years in prison. He was paroled in 1959, and he moved to Ireland with his wife and young family, settling in Navan, County Meath and changing his name to the Gaelic Sean Mac Stiofain (Shawn MacStephen in English). In December 1969, he became one of the leaders of the IRA Army Council alongside David O'Connell and Seamus Twomey, and he became Chief-of-Staff of the Army Council. His strategy of "escalate, escalate, escalate" and his commitment to physical force Irish republicansm led to 1972 being the bloodiest year of The Troubles, with 100 British Army troops and 90 IRA members being killed. He was arrested for ordering Bloody Friday, and he was expelled from the Army Council for bringing the IRA into disrepute. He left Sinn Fein in 1982 and died of a stroke in 2001 at the age of 73.